Calling
Waking the next morning was laborious for Christine. Clouds and colors of already forgotten dreams swam through headache that was combated only by the impressed sedation that lingered in the shadowy memory of Erik singing her to sleep. The darkness of her slumber had seemed heavier than usual, and as she rubbed open her eyes, it pervaded and she realized she could not see. Without any windows in Erik's underground house, the lack of natural light was absolute, and therefore, if even dimmed to the slightest, he always left at least one lamp lit for Christine's sake. But there was no light now and for a moment, Christine faintly feared there was something wrong with her eyes. She sat up, and with hesitant hands, felt for the lamp on the end table. It was still warm, but not warm enough. It felt as if it must have been turned off just recently. But why would Erik turn out the light just before she would be waking? Or had it gone out on its own? She realized it was ridiculous to consider the idea that Erik would have come into her room and turned off her light. It must have gone out on its own somehow within the past half hour or so.
She felt hesitantly about the drawer for a matchbox, but gave up after a few moments and stood to find the door. She guided herself easily to the foot of the bed, but once she let go of its banister her progress grew hesitant and unstable. She knew that she knew this room well enough to find her way to the door with her eyes closed, but the fact that the darkness she stumbled through was so mysteriously occurring made her doubtful of every step, and one after the next, they grew more and more affrightedly uncertain.
There was a sound behind her. It was as if the black air had sighed aloud, and as she whirled about to face it, she saw a glow of white flash by in her peripheral vision and then disappear.
She gasped and stumbled amid the twisted hems of her nightgown. Her back hit the wall, knocking the breath forcefully from her. Her fingers dug against the soft paper at her sides as she flattened herself to the wall, her eyes darting around the darkness, wide and useless.
"Erik?" she choked, as she tried to regain her breath. "Erik?"
Her ears strained against the echoing of the throb of her own blood, but she heard nothing more.
"Erik?"
He was not there.
Very slowly her fingers crept along the wall and felt the frame of an open door. The bathroom! She clenched the molding, her nails pressing into the wood, and after one more moment of hopeless scrutiny, she pulled with all her strength and flung herself around the corner and against the inside wall of the bathroom. She beat the panel where she knew the switch for the electric lights was mounted until she found it and the bulbs flickered awake.
Initially, she forced her eyes to remain open against the painful sudden glare, but once she saw she was alone, they squeezed shut and she swayed with visions of bright spots beneath the hand she clasped to her face. She waited until long after she could no longer feel her heartbeat in her throat before she slowly spread her hand and peeked between her fingers. The normalcy about the room seemed almost strange. She stepped away from the wall and approached the doorframe. Leaning around, she looked into the bedroom illuminated by the light from her door. Everything was quite normal.
She sighed slowly. What had she anticipated? Now that she thought of it, she did not know. But she had never been one to be rational when in the dark.
She went back into the bedroom and lit the lamp at her writing desk, and then over to light the gas of the wall lamps at the door. She dropped the match into the wastebasket and turned the doorknob. She edged the door open to glance into the parlor. Erik was nowhere to be seen.
She shut the door and turned back to the bedroom to dress.
Later, when she emerged from her room, still shaken but refreshed, Erik was waiting for her.
She offered him a small smile. "Good morning."
"I hope you are aware of the time," he commented reproachfully.
"No…" She glanced away from his stern look. "I did not even look. Is it late?"
He followed her surprised gaze to the large clock on the parlor wall. "Well, it is certainly no longer morning."
Her cheeks flushed with color and she looked back to him through downcast lashes. "I'm sorry… I missed our lesson."
She could imagine that he smiled beneath the mask as he offered a hand to her in a gesture to accompany him to the piano.
"You are fortunate, my dear, that when it comes to your singing, I can afford all the time in the world." He took a seat on the bench. "At any hour of the day."
Her own smile brightened, and she found her usual place at the instrument's side where he could watch her as he played.
He turned a few pages of music. "As it is, I suppose you needed the rest. You will need the energy for tonight."
She frowned in confusion. "Tonight?"
He looked up quickly from the pages. "Yes, tonight. You are singing Rachel," he reminded her.
"Tonight?" she gasped in recollection. "La Juive! Oh, but I had forgotten! Tonight!"
Erik's eyes narrowed within the hollow sockets of his mask and his fingers drummed against the top of the piano.
She pressed a hand to her mouth and spoke, her voice muffled, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry… I didn't... I… I don't even know if I'm ready."
Erik pushed away the music on the piano stand and propped up Halevy's score. "We have four hours before you need to be upstairs. You will be ready."
And they plunged together into the sweeping romantic French melodies of La Juive. Initially, with full concentration, Christine sang out the spiritual passion of God and religion, love and betrayal, treachery and despair, but she was stopped often as Erik picked endlessly at technicalities. Time passed blindly and as she sang of Rachel's devotion to her father, soon thoughts of her dream from the night before began to wander back into her mind. She missed the warmth of her father's arms. And his gentle patience with her childish curiosity. She recalled her far milder voice lessons with him before he had died. She had mostly sung folk songs then. He sometimes called her Angel, but he had never once called her his little Songbird… Songbird…
Suddenly she was snapped from her thoughts as Erik slammed down the lid of the piano and stood abruptly, the bench overturning behind him.
"You are not concentrating!"
His shout made her jump more than the sharp bang of the wood had and she stepped back from the piano in stunned silence as her wide-eyed stare distinguished the volatile tension in Erik's frame.
But it was gone in another moment and the flashing in his eyes slowly dimmed to an expression of stern disappointment.
"Christine," he began again, his tone corrected to one of cool constancy, before the suspended anxiety between them became too taught. "I demand your absolute focus."
She looked away from him and sighed softly. "I'm sorry. It was just…"
"Nothing must take your mind from your singing."
"I know. I'm sorry, Erik." When she looked back to him, he was already seated and scanning the music. She pressed her lips together nervously, not ready to start again. "It was just… I can't help it, Erik."
He looked up at her and she glanced away once more as she continued, "I just can't stop thinking about her. And I… I'm not myself. I was hearing things."
"…Things?"
She met the now-concerned look in his eyes and nodded. "When I awoke, it was pitch black in my room. Somehow the lamps had gone out. But then I heard a sigh."
He remained silent for another moment before speaking. "It was probably just the air. Or the gas if it was still on."
She shook her head. "No, it was off. And it was vocal, Erik. Not just like air, but very much like a voice sighing."
He glanced in the direction of her room and then slowly back to her.
She put her hands to her face again, whispering, "I'm hearing things."
He rose from the bench and drew her away from the piano, gesturing for her to have a seat. He spoke more comfortingly then, "One imagined sigh is hardly cause for concern, Christine."
She felt very cold all of a sudden. Wrapping her arms around herself, she sank back into the soft velvet of the divan. "I saw something too. It was bright white."
"The eyes can play tricks like that right after waking."
"But it was pitch dark in there! How could I have seen anything whether it was there or not? And it wasn't in my eyes, it was all the way across the room!"
He knelt before her and took her by the arms, pressing her back against the cushion. "Christine, calm yourself. You are becoming hysterical over nothing."
The fact that he was touching her was enough to startle her from saying anything further. She stared into his eyes and tried to cling to their steadiness to even her breathing.
"I'm sorry," she sighed again. She dropped her face into her hands. "I don't know what's come over me. I'm just… not myself."
He pulled back and rested a hand on the arm of the divan. "It could be shock," he said thoughtfully. "But more likely, it is a sort of transference. You have been under the stress that has built up of other matters and this event has triggered you to be more upset than need be and express your distress subconsciously."
She did not think she agreed with him, but she did not say so. She was not certain how much she appreciated being mentally analyzed by Erik, of all people. She glanced away from him, and her fingers absently stroked the softness of the wine colored velvet of her seat. She frowned though as the material became rough and hard under her moving touch. She looked down at it and saw the matted areas that water had left behind as it dried. Water that had dripped from a dead child. Elainie had lain here…
Erik followed her gaze and also tested the velvet with his own sensitive fingers, evaluating the damage. "It just needs to be brushed," he concluded.
It rather upset Christine that he seemed to be more concerned with the condition of his couch than the source of its staining. She bit the insides of her cheeks and looked up at him, silent for a moment, before asking with a strange sense of authority, "How did she die, Erik?"
He turned back to her, and she could tell her question had unnerved him.
"I don't know, Christine. Not yet."
"When, Erik? You promised."
He did not answer her. He did not move at all, his hands remaining limp at his sides. And as she continued to wait for him to speak, she could only more imagine that cold, little girl lying on that cold, hard table in that cold, cold room. All alone. With nobody but Christine to care to understand the mysteries of her tragedy. Nobody…
Erik must have noticed her change in expression, for he moved to her suddenly. "Tonight, Christine."
She looked up to him again, joy and relief immediately swimming amid her unfallen tears.
"After the opera," he finished with conviction. His heart could never bear to see her so unhappy. Perhaps, he hoped, once her questions were answered, she would become herself again.
And now as he slowly turned his hand to hold it out for her, she actually smiled.
She was more at ease then, as they spent the remainder of their time together rehearsing. And when he took her back upstairs to leave her to prepare for the performance, it was only thoughts of La Juive that filled her head.
She was already dressed and the costume mistress had gone when there came a knock at her door.
"Come in," she called from her makeup table, too busy to rise.
"Flowers, madame," said the porter as he entered her room, arms filled with various bouquets.
She glanced up, surprised. "Oh! Which one is for me?"
He was going through each of the cards, unable to remember and having difficulty at the task.
She watched him for a moment, then asked, "May I help?"
"No, no," he grunted and shifted a few from one arm to the other. "I know it's one of these."
She smiled and went back to applying her makeup.
"Ah, here we are," he said. "Special delivery for Miss Christine Daaé. Where would you like them?"
"Anywhere," she said absently as she sorted through her things for a missing brush. "Thank you." She was too occupied to look up as he left.
Only a few moments later, however, she distinctly heard voices down the hall. She looked to her door and saw that he had left it ajar. She sighed, mildly irritated, and stood to go to it. She did not blame him, of course; she knew his hands were full, and after all, she had forgotten to tip him.
As she glanced down the hall, she saw two wig mistresses turning a corner. The source of the voices, she could imagine. She began to shut the door, but before she looked away, her eyes caught sight of someone else in the corridor. A lone figure stood, half hidden in a niche, leaning against the wall. His attention also seemed to be caught by the people down the hall, but once they were out of sight, and before Christine managed to close the door completely, he turned and caught her eye.
He straightened immediately and stepped toward her. "Mademoiselle," he entreated. His voice wavered with uncertainty.
Christine's gaze fell, but she could not bring herself to shut the door. "I am busy," she said softly.
He removed his black silk hat, stopping to the door, looking at what he could of her through the small opening. "Please…"
She looked to him again, and when she saw the anxiety in his beseeching blue eyes, she knew she could not shut him out. She stepped back, opening the door enough to allow him inside.
He followed her with all the timidity of a boy in love, and respectfully left the door open behind him.
She sat again at her table and tried to focus on her own face in the mirror, not the fine fit of his tuxedo as he approached behind her.
"Why don't you answer my letters?" he asked softly, attempting to mask the hurt in his tone.
Her voice was barely audible. "I have nothing to say."
He set his hat on the table and knelt beside her stool in attempt to catch her eye. "Who sent you flowers?"
She glanced at him and then across the room. A long, but thin bouquet of half a dozen white lilies and ferns rested melodramatically across her quilted divan. She had already forgotten about them. "I don't know."
He eyed her half dubiously and then rose and went to them. The paper rustled in his hands as he read the card.
"Well?" she asked, almost offended by his presumptuous action.
He looked back at her. "It's anonymous." He took a moment to inhale their fragrance, and then handed them gently into her outstretched arms.
She found the card and read it. It was merely addressed to her and said nothing more. She met his eyes as he returned to his knee beside her. "But they are beautiful… Are they from you?"
He thoughtfully stroked one of the long, velvety petals. "No. If I were to send you flowers, I would never send you lilies." He then looked up at her again, and a smile pulled at the corners of his lips that could have been chiseled artwork. "And I would send you flowers if I wasn't afraid you would have them returned. I would send you vase after basket of every kind of flower you could imagine."
She wanted to smile too, but she could not manage it. She leaned toward him, pressing the bouquet into her lap. "Oh, Raoul. You really mustn't. And I would return them. Even if it were every flower I could imagine." But she was not even sure how seriously she took her own determination. She could so easily picture the flowers filling her dressing room. "But why wouldn't you send me lilies?"
His smile brightened infinitely as she said his name, but he only shrugged and rubbed his fingers to remove the pollen caught there from the stamens. "They are a little morose, don't you think?"
She looked down at the six she held, and said softly, not really asking, "Are they?"
He studied her half-painted face in silence as she became lost in her own thoughts. But he knew he did not have much time and so he gently took the bouquet from her and set it on her table next to his hat. He then took her by the hand, bringing her attention back to him. "Come to dinner with me tonight? Please, Christine, just once."
She shook her head and moved to pull her hand from his, but he would not let it go. "I can't, Raoul," she said softly, trying to be kind. "Not tonight nor any other night."
"Why?" he pleaded.
"I will be tired after the opera. I will need to go home to rest."
"But you don't go home, Christine. You never go home."
She pressed her lips together and looked away, successfully retrieving her hand this time. "Have you been spying on me?"
He did not want to answer that question. "Just come with me for once? I promise I won't keep you late."
"No, Raoul. Not tonight. Especially not tonight."
He sighed, defeated, and did not ask again. But something about the way she replied gave him hope for future nights. He reached to take her hand again and this time noticed the necklace wrapped about her wrist. Jealousy flared within him once more, just as it had when the porter knocked on her door with an armful of flowers. She was accepting gifts from someone else.
"What is this?"
She pulled her hand from him much more forcefully than before and wrapped her other around the chain and pendant. "It's… It's not mine."
"Whose is it?"
She began to unwrap it from her wrist. "It's… It belongs to a little girl." She had forgotten about it and surely would have walked on stage wearing it if she had not been reminded. It would have been no crucial matter, as she was playing the part of a jeweler's daughter, but she was horrified by the idea that she could have allowed herself to possibly lose it.
Raoul's finely cut features furrowed into a frown. "What little girl?"
She cupped the necklace carefully and put it into a delicate ceramic trinket box on her table, making sure to shut the lid. "She's… Well… I found her."
Raoul took her by the arm to turn her back to him. "You found a little girl? Where? When?"
"It was… It… Yesterday."
Raoul's confusion was almost endearing. "Where is she now?"
Christine looked from him to her mirror. "She's dead."
Raoul leapt to his feet and went to the door, shutting it immediately. She stood to stop him, but only took a couple steps before he met her again.
"She was dead when I found her, Raoul! I found her dead."
He paused warily. "Where, Christine?"
She hesitated, her voice falling again to near faintness. "In the cellars. Downstairs, in the cellars below the stage."
"Have you told the police, Christine? We must tell the police."
"No!" she gasped again. "Not yet! Not tonight."
"Then when, Christine? Why wait? Who knows what could have happened! How on earth—"
She seized his hands then, cutting him off. "That is why I must wait. I can't explain, but you must believe me. Tomorrow. I'll go to the police tomorrow."
He was horribly uncertain, but there was nothing he could do. He studied the desperation on her face for a moment, deciding not to object. Besides, she had an opera to sing tonight. His eyes locked with hers as he squeezed her hands and stepped closer to close the distance between them.
She pulled her hands from his yet again and turned away. "But you must go now. I am running out of time."
And as if on cue, there came another knock on her door and the stage manager's assistant called through, "Fifteen minutes, Miss Daaé."
"Thank you," she answered shakily as Raoul regrettably returned to the table to get his hat.
He went to the door, hesitating before taking the handle. He wanted to stall for a suitable amount of time so that the hall would be empty when he left. For both of their sakes, he did not want to be seen emerging from her room.
"I will see you tomorrow," he said, a note of sorrow to his voice.
She glanced at him quickly, then away again as she returned to her vanity, setting the lilies aside. "You will see me on stage in fifteen minutes."
"Yes," he sighed. "But you won't see me."
"Sometimes I can see you," she murmured as she went back to her makeup. "If the lights are not in my eyes."
He watched her, stalling for another unneeded moment. "I will speak to you tomorrow?"
She did not answer, and he could not tell if it was deliberate or if she were merely too focused at her task. One last lingering glance, and he left the room.
On stage, the lights were in her eyes and she could not see him. But for that she decided she was glad and it was for the better. Being able to watch him watching her would have only distracted her from her performance. And she knew that once she was distracted in one capacity, she would soon find herself again thinking of the girl and not about singing. She knew Erik was watching too, though she never saw him in his box, lights or no. She did not want to disappoint him. She never wanted to disappoint him, but she was even more afraid if she did so tonight, that in retribution he would not follow through with his promise to provide her the answers she longed for to Elainie's mystery. Tonight! He would find out tonight! And try as she might, she continually found her mind wandering at crucial points in the performance.
By the time the fourth act was over, she was beginning to dread she had already ruined her chances at Erik's good graces and the fear that he would punish her with denial of what she wanted only made her suffering worse. She had spent all the intermissions absolutely alone in her dressing room, trying to meditate into focus, and in this last one, she doubled her energy with the desperate hope that she might redeem herself in the last act.
She sat with her eyes closed, her fingers rubbing her temples in slow, deliberate circles. She was humming to herself a piece of Eleazar's music that opened the next scene, and it was working very well to put her into the moment of the story. Her mind was filled with filial devotion and spiritual dedication that both tugged at her heart with love and joy, as well as began to fill her eyes with emotional tears. Music swept through her imagination and she felt lifted up to the climax of mutual martyrdom. Love of a father and love of a God would forever triumph over the betrayals of man!
But Christine's thoughts were suddenly cut off as a sharp sound penetrated her ears through her own humming. She fell silent and opened her eyes. It had sounded like high-pitched laughter. She glanced to the door to make certain it was closed. It was… How strange, she thought. No other sound had managed to distract her.
It came again. It was most certainly a joyous peal of laughter, bright and brilliant, and could only have belonged to a child. Christine was on her feet in a moment and tore open her door. The hall was empty. It ended very near her room and she moved down that way to make certain. No one was there. She then turned and went in the other direction, peering into every doorway, expecting each dark alcove to hide a mischievous child with a laugh that could make her flesh crawl. But there was no one, child nor adult. Christine wrapped her arms around herself, the rough wool of her costume itching her hands, and she began to tremble as she returned to her room.
She stepped back inside and slowly pushed the door shut behind her. But no more than a moment after the latch had clicked closed, her hair was set on end by the shrillest of screams that echoed down the corridor just outside her door.
Her now desperately shaking hand clutched at the handle, taking several tries to pull it open again. As she stumbled back into the hall, she clearly saw two young women in full costume, unrecognizable from behind, tear around the corner at the end and disappear. She could still hear one of them laughing in a very different sort of strained, nervous laughter, and before they were out of earshot, the other shrieked again:
"The ghost!"
Christine stood, frozen, in the corridor, and tried to catch her shuddering breath. Gradually she turned to glance about her, almost afraid of what she might see. But once again, she was alone.
"Erik?" she called softly, her voice thin and weak.
Silence.
"…Erik?"
He would have answered if he were there.
She turned and with slow, careful steps, once more returned to her dressing room.
He would have answered if he were there…
She left the door open behind her this time and lowered herself onto her stool. She reached to her little box and took the necklace from it, returning it to her wrist. The ceramic lid clattered frustratingly as she replaced it with a trembling hand.
"Are you ready to die?" a sharp voice called to her from the corridor.
She literally sprang from her seat and whirled about to face the door. It must have taken her almost a minute before she recognized the amused smile of the stage manager's assistant at the threshold.
"Wha—What?" she stammered.
"Act Five, Miss Daaé. Your grand finale."
"Oh… Yes…"
He nodded courteously to her. "Two minutes." And then he moved on.
"Thank you," she called after him too quietly and several moments too late. He was already gone and she was alone again.
As she left the room to make her way back to the stage, all was silent. There was no more disembodied laughter calling from the corridor to play tricks on her ears, and no ghosts in the hall to frighten the chorus girls.
Her fingers twisted the chain about her wrist in endless circles.
Erik would have answered her if he were there.
She was not herself. But those girls had been running from something. Maybe she wasn't the only one who was hearing things.